


The Parting Glass

by Natalya



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Christmas, Established Relationship, Fluff, Howling Commandos - Freeform, M/M, Memories, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, can't sleep, remembering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-30
Updated: 2014-08-30
Packaged: 2018-02-15 10:35:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2225889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Natalya/pseuds/Natalya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's Christmas Eve/very early Christmas morning and Bucky can't sleep.  Some music, a photo and a bottle of vodka are his friends.  Fluff and established relationship at the end.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Parting Glass

The snow was falling softly past the window, lit in the streetlights of the night dark city beyond. There was frost on the outside of the windows, delicate, fern like structures spreading skeletal fingers along the glass. Bucky sat on the windowsill, one foot up, the other on the floor. He had his right shoulder pressed against the glass, feeling the cold slowly filtering through his long sleeved shirt, an old, yellowed photograph in right hand, resting it on his knee, an open bottle of vodka in his left hand, dangling it loosely from his fingers by the neck of the bottle.

It was four am, Christmas Eve and he hadn’t been able to sleep, too many things running through his head. He had finally got out of bed, moving on silent feet through the apartment, not to wake Steve who had simply rolled over with a mumbled sound. He had turned on the lights on the tree that they had set up in the lounge, giving the room a warm glow. He had put a record on low and settled down on the windowsill with the bottle and photograph.

The Howling Commandos. They had been more than a unit. They had been a family. A brotherhood who had walked through the gates of hell together and who had come out the other side still fighting. Heroes, true, but men first and foremost, men who were loyal as hell, who lived, loved, laughed, who liked to drink, to smoke, to talk. He took a long pull on the vodka, feeling it burning a trail down his throat, pooling warm in his stomach. The alcohol no longer had any effect, not after what had been done to him, but the heat was the same, the taste, the sense of ritual.

_Of all the money that e'er I had_   
_I've spent it in good company_   
_And all the harm that e'er I've done_   
_Alas it was to none but me_

The soft words that filtered through the room made him smile, the memories flooding gently into his mind, soft as a whisper of smoke, memories of a bar in a small French village, the sound of Dum Dum singing horrendously out of key, a bottle of brandy in one hand, while Gabe sat beside him, whispering sweet nothings to one of the barmaids who was blushing, but giving as good as she got. He’d been sat at the beaten up old piano, playing away, while Steve, Monty, Jacques and Jim had been playing cards on the table next to him, the five of them bantering backwards and forwards, every now and again Steve looking up at him, catching his eye and giving him a soft smile that he knew was his alone.

_And all I've done for want of wit_   
_To memory now I can't recall_   
_So fill to me the parting glass_   
_Good night and joy be with you all_

They’d done some crazy things. All of them had.

He took another swallow of the vodka, remembering the scent of gunpowder in the air, the noise of the explosions, the rush of adrenaline as they had stormed a base together. They’d done stupid things, rash things, things to save each other’s asses without a second damn thought and he knew that they’d been lucky, they’d all been lucky to have come back from those things. But that was the trouble, when it was a tight knit group like they had been. There was no leaving a man behind, the plan bedamned, not if there was any way that they could be saved, that they could get them back, bring them home.

Steve had been a prime example of that the first time that he had broken them out from that Hydra base, had pulled him up from that table, and even then, even in the safety of the apartment, with seventy years of time, of blood and of suffering in between Bucky could barely repress the shudder that ran through him. That had been the moment that he had changed, both through Zola’s experimentation that the Russians had completed, and through the after effects of the torture. He had become colder that day, more calculating, had found it harder to laugh, harder to be a part of life, moreso than simply from the effects of being thrown into the theatre of war.

_Of all the comrades that e'er I had_   
_They are sorry for my going away_   
_And all the sweethearts that e'er I had_   
_They would wish me one more day to stay_

The words slipped past his lips unbidden as he sang softly along with the song, his voice low, slightly rough but still melodic as he thought back to the moment that he had died, the moment where he had fallen from the train, the icy wind whistling past him, reaching, grasping for Steve’s hand even as he fell, remembered the look on Steve’s face as he’d reached out for him, hadn’t been able to reach far enough. Remembered the blood in the snow when he’d been found, his body dragged along by his so called rescuers. It had been the beginning of a different kind of war. He had been fighting since the forties. His war had simply not ended.He looked again to the photograph, eyes roaming over the faces of the men there, of all of them. Remembered what Steve had told him about after he had died.

_But since it falls unto my lot_   
_That I should rise and you should not_   
_I'll gently rise and I'll softly call_   
_Good night and joy be with you all_

As he sang the next words he heard a low, sleepy voice join his, making him look round to see Steve standing in the doorway. They had both risen. Had both come out of the ice, were both still there, both still together and that thought, it was enough to keep him going, enough to remind him that each and every day was important, that they had been given that second chance even though those that they had fought beside had passed. The grief was still a deep ache in his chest, alongside the weight of the years, but he could still smile when he thought of them, could still be glad that they had lived their lives, even after he and Steve were lost to the ice and to time.He gave Steve a soft, slow smile as Steve came to him, standing beside him, draping one arm round his shoulders, a warm, solid presence at his side.

_A man may drink and not be drunk_   
_A man may fight and not be slain_   
_A man may court a pretty girl_   
_And perhaps be welcomed back again_   
_But since it has so ought to be_   
_By a time to rise and a time to fall_   
_Come fill to me the parting glass_   
_Good night and joy be with you all_   
_Good night and joy be with you all_

Their voices melded together and he was transported back again, to another time, another life, feeling as though the rest were stood there, the ghosts slowly crowding around them, Jim, Gabe, Monty, Jacques, and Dum Dum, as though they were stood there alongside them, raising their glasses alongside them both. As the final notes of the song died away Steve went and changed the CD in the stereo while Bucky gave him a silent toast with the bottle, drinking down another few measures as Steve walked back over to him as soft strains of Glenn Miller, Moonlight Serenade began to filter around them, wrapping them in the soft strains of the familiar music.

Bucky swallowed past the sudden lump in his throat, getting to his feet in a fluid movement, shaking his head at Steve as he did. “You’re a fuckin’ sap, Rogers.” He murmured, leaving the bottle on the windowsill, alongside the photograph as he crossed the room to Steve. Steve shrugged, a slight smile on his lips as he looked Bucky up and down, reading him like a book, Bucky knew. Steve had always been able to do that, and even after all this time, that was something that hadn’t changed.

“You okay?”

“Yeah.” Bucky took Steve’s hands, pulling him in closer, wrapping his arms around him, feeling Steve’s arms go round him, a warm, constant presence. “Just remembering, that’s all.”

“I miss them.” Steve’s voice was a murmur as they swayed gently to the music. “I miss them so much sometimes, still hurts you know?”

Bucky looked at him, seeing the old grief written in blue eyes, knew it was reflected in his own. “Yeah. Yeah I know, pal. Believe me.” He replied, raising one hand to cup the back of Steve’s head, pulling him gently into a kiss, one that was chaste and languid, but full of promise. As they broke apart he gave him a slightly crooked smile. “But we’re still here, and we still remember them. They’d be happy for us, I think.”

“And be calling us a few choice names for being so sentimental.” Replied Steve with a low chuckle, slightly ragged around the edges.

Bucky smiled and laughed softly, squeezing Steve a little tighter. They were both, he knew, still so young to have gone through so much, and the years and the loss had left deep marks and scars on both of them. But they still had each other, were still in love after all the years, with the men that they had been, the men that they had become. “Yeah, yeah they would be.”

“Happy Christmas, Buck.” Steve looked at him for a few seconds, drawing him into another soft kiss, and in that moment, surrounded by the music, with Steve’s lips against his, it felt as though the decades had melded together, time meaning nothing.

“Happy Christmas.” He murmured in reply.

**Author's Note:**

> The lyrics are from Ed Sheeran's rendition of The Parting Glass.


End file.
